Before the 2026 Tour of Flanders, Tadej Pogačar, Mathieu van der Poel, Remco Evenepoel and Wout van Aert had only met on the start line of two one-day races together. Both times were at the World Championships, in 2022 and 2023. But on Sunday, they faced off for an epic, rare battle on the road from Antwerp to Oudenaarde and, in a memorable edition, the phenomenal Slovenian emerged victorious for his 12th Monument success.
This moves Pogačar to second place on the all-time leaderboard for victories at cycling's five most prestigious one-day races, ahead of Roger De Vlaeminck and with only Eddy Merckx's, in theory, untouchable total of 19 left to chase.
